A Foal's Fondest Wish
by Lilly K
Summary: Sequel to What Curiosity Killed. Lili reigns with Darkness, one unicorn is left alive, and the world's good and evil are fading into tones of gray. Angels, demons, fairies, humans, what will be left when the very notions of good and evil are challenged by the fate of two young champions, competing for the crown of a God? Can the righteous and the unclean coexist?
1. Chapter 1

I apologize for the wait. Life is life, you know, but here is the first tiny bit of the sequel to What Curiosity Killed, A Foal's Fondest Wish.

* * *

Ch. 1

Spawn

Gump awoke with a powerful twitch as he lay in his pile of ash where the fire had been. This part of the woods was cold, too cold now, and too dark. He sat up and pulled a rabbit skin around his shoulders, looking this way and that with a nervous glance. The shadows surrounding him seemed to move with their own sort of eerie life, and circled him in discomforting silence. He stumbled haphazardly across snapping twigs into a clearing in the canopy where the stars shone down. He breathed a quiet sigh, letting the starlight warm his face—not with its light, but with its hope.

"Monoceros!" he whispered, relaxing his muscles and craning his neck back to gaze at the heavens, "The unicorn stars!"

How bright they were! How radiant to see tonight, from the lightless forest!

A shadow fell over Gump's face, and the stars were smothered. A fearsome being stood before him, with horns like a beast and eyes like a man and skin as white as the grave.

He spoke in deep tones, but the smooth reverberations of Darkness's voice were not present. Instead, the voice was hardened and rough. "And where there is death, so there is life... so too, I expect, for you, little fairy."

The being took Gump by the scruff of his neck, and the little elf kicked and screamed and wailed, "Let me go! Let me go! I want no part of it! No part!"

The being only laughed derisively at his struggle, "Oh, you do not?" He looked into Gump's frightened eyes, invading them, invading his mind and his heart with an inky, sickening feeling.

Gump tried to push back, tried to learn some weakness from the powerful being's essence as it stole from his. Xaoc, the being was called, and it was a demon. It smiled down at Gump knowingly through a row of needle-like teeth.

"Your friends have abandoned you. Oona, Jack... and the power of my brother's brood captivates this wood day by day. Your home is … disappearing. Chaos... surrounds you." He stuck a long, pointed tongue out and wrapped it around Gump's head, resting its point against his nose, and licked the entire tongue back into his mouth with a satisfied slurp. "Little elf, your time is at an end. Either change as you must, or perish because you are not able."

"I won't be a goblin! I won't be a goblin!" he fussed. Xaoc only held him higher, tightening his muscular grip around the elf's neck. Gump felt his life slipping away from his eyes.

A majestic bray echoed through the wood. Xaoc dropped Gump in a pile of leaves, and turned to see the unicorn, swollen and pregnant, stampeding towards him with her horn lowered to strike. The demon vanished in a cloud of mist. Gump coughed and pulled himself up through the crinkling leaves to look at her.

"... And where there is death... so there is life," he rasped, wide eyed, bending on both knees before the unicorn that had saved his life, as he had saved her life many years ago, "A foal!"

The mother unicorn was not like the timid creature that Gump recalled from his adventure many years ago with Oona and Jack and the traitor princess. This mare's eyes were blazing black, and she reared up on her hind legs and whinnied. Gump could just make out by the starlight that her shimmering golden horn was stained at the tip with black goblin blood.

"Easy, girl! Danger's gone. It wasn't come for your young..." Gump whispered, eyes wide.

The unicorn trotted in place, abdomen swaying as it pounded the rage out of its hooves into the forest earth.

"I see," said Gump, using a tree to help him to his feet. "But mother, you must rest now. One unicorn should not bear the burden of the whole forest. It is not your fault." Gump sighed, and thought to himself, if anything, it was his. He should have taken responsibility for the wayward humans, but he succeeded only in stalling the waves of darkness to come.

The unicorn breathed heavily, and slowly approached the elf. Its horn began to glow as it lowered its head gently. She rested the horn against Gump's shoulder, and he felt a warm, rich emotion rise in his belly. It felt like the reason to stand up for good and truth and light and beauty... It felt like life. It brought tears to the small elf's eyes as it healed the bruises forming on his neck.

"Mother unicorn," said Gump, bowing his head, "I swear, I will protect and defend you and your child with my life, against all others, no matter what I must do or who I must slay. If by my hand I can save you, your radiance shall not fade."

* * *

"Far from the forest, in a land between the Heavens and the Earth, there is a ceaseless tornado, spinning up into the clouds. In the twister is a tiny house with only one room. It bobs endlessly in the swirling grip of the winds. Inside it lives a single ancient angel, Helena the Gray. Caught between the worlds of light and dark, the angel watches her kin, the demonic and the angelic, hoping to find truth. At least, so the stories go..."

Lili, Queen of Darkness, smiled as she peered over the runic book at her newest brood of eggs. They were scaly and black and glistened with moisture. "Do you like the story?" she asked. They gave a little wobble, perhaps an indication.

"Well," She held the book closer to her face to read again, and was interrupted by an awful squawking.

"Get them, get them!" called Blunder the Goblin, chasing after a ribbiting stampede of toads. The two chefs lumbered into the room, dopily turning this way and that to collect their stray ingredients.

Blunder heaved a deep sigh, standing up next to where the dark lady sat, and still had to look up to meet her gaze. "So sorry, mistress. The Lord sure does love his toady-face pie," he chuckled halfheartedly before his tone changed to anger, "But these KNUCKLEHEADS can't seem to keep the toads IN THE KITCHEN!"

Lili laughed sincerely, eyes dancing, and scooped up one of the little toads from the nest of eggs. "What's the matter, don't be so uptight!" she stuck out her tongue, "Can't you handle a little-"

"Chaos." came the warm, rich voice of Lord Darkness.

"Exactly," Lili lifted to her feet and embraced him. He closed his eyes and purred, but then looked at her with worry.

"My brother, Xaoc, has just left us for the domain of the angels. He took no time to mention why, and Monoceros burns bright. What can it mean?"

Lili looked upon his wrinkled red face and remembered long, long ago when she had met the unicorns. It was a different life. It was a different world. Lili gave up the life of a human woman to live in the delights of Darkness, forever a demon bride. She had not kept track of how many years it had been. She walked arm in arm with the demon lord up to their nest where the eggs rested, contemplating silently.

Darkness held her close to him, "Your thoughts are transparent as the dew, my lady," he kissed her forehead. "But do not trouble yourself for the past. It disturbs the..." he reached out his hand and moved his fingers over the black lumpy mounds, "Eggs."

Lili felt a surge of lust, and sank her teeth into the demon's shoulder. High above, the celestial angels listened as Xaoc the Defiler and Helena the Gray told them the meaning of the brightest stars—that a foal was about to be born into the world below.


	2. Chapter 2 (Minichapter)

Apologies for taking so long again. There really is no adequate excuse, so I will only say that I promise this story will happen eventually-but it is going to take time. I appreciate very much that there are people reading, and I don't want to undervalue that. But saying anything other than "This will take a long time to finish" Would be unrealistic right now. I will try to post small chapters so that you will have some update rather than nothing for a long time.

The Carpenter's House (Mini CH) 2

She watched him rocking back and forth in the wooden chair he had made himself from a sturdy old oak. She watched him run his fingers over the hammer on his belt with reverence, and sip the chilled beer from a tankard on the stump beside him. Oona watched him breathing—his shoulders moving up and down as his wizened old eyes darted nimbly from tree to shrub, following the fireflies. The stars were coming out. Jack sighed and his wrinkled old lip twitched up to his nose in a smirk—the beautiful stars were smiling. In three days, it would be ten years. Ten years since his wife passed away. Twelve years since his youngest boy left the village to seek his fortune. Forty three years since he had left home himself. All that remained of the life he had created were the empty bed frames, the kitchen chairs and table, and a few too many good memories.

Life had never been easy for Jack, but things seemed to always turn out well. He would exhaust himself, working into the night, but wake up to find that he had finished anything that he started. The impish fairy Oona had learned much from Jack. She learned the value of treating others with kindness, expecting nothing in return.

She had set out to follow the human boy not sure if she was going to make his life better or miserable, but soon found that nothing she did could determine his happiness—only Jack could do that. She learned to watch and love the humans like one watches and loves the morning glories that blossom with the dew and close again before nightfall. Jack's wife was plain and gentle, and Oona didn't much like that. She gave the little woman a beautiful face and glowing hair and pinched her whenever she forgot to stand up for herself. Jack's sons and daughters were as wild as he was when he was young, and spent most of their time tripping over trolls' legs or stumbling into satyrs, but when they came home in the evening he showed them all the love that a father could give. They never were rich, but they never were cold, and they never were hungry. Oona missed the children and their mother as much as Jack, for they had been her favorite secret playthings, but she never thought to follow them off on their adventures into the wide world.

Jack tugged at the collar of his tunic as the night began to cool. So much was past now. The forest was thick around his small cabin and growing dark. He could see little looking forward, but the sky glittered so beautifully when he looked up that he could not take his eyes off of it, even when he began to hear sounds from deep in the trees.

Oona gasped, "My Jack!" And she fluttered so hard that she hit her poor little head on the top of an outstretched branch. Her head was woozy—rushing with bright pixie dust and fright. She spiraled out of control toward the tranquil old man as the wild things of the forest crept closer to his lonely form.


	3. Chapter 3 (Minichapter)

(Mini) Ch. 3 Mirrors and Fragments

Xaoc shook himself off, feet planted firmly back into the world's earth, and sprayed little bits of volcanic ash from his crackling white-gray body.

"Angels..." He growled with contempt, letting the magma blood in his veins char his formerly pale white skin.

"Tossers, all of them," Nodded Helena, though any anger she may have harbored was invisible. She looked thoughtful. "We told them what's fair, and if they have their heads too far up their arses to give a damn, we don't need Heaven."

"I would have thought," Rumbled Xaoc, "That at least the Radiant Master would have put some effort into the charade—some indication, however duplicitous, that he cared for his mortal pets. But he must be more withered and useless than even I supposed."

"Perhaps," said the expressionless gray angel, "we shall see for ourselves," she whispered, pulling a glittering pocket-mirror from her robe.

Xaoc stumbled back a step, and lowered his voice to a deadly quiet, "You are mad to use that here! My brother will find out and torture you out of your mind—if my father does not crawl through and devour you himself!"

"Your father's quarrel is not with me, it is with your foolish, prideful brother and his temptress." She sat on a stone facing the bog opposite from the caverns where Darkness had claimed his first domain.

"But in his wrath, you will be destroyed..." Xaoc could not help himself. He peered deeply into the mirror, and the expressionless angel changed, smiling mischievously behind him. For the gray angel who had been alone for so long, tempting a tempter was utterly satisfying.

Blinding light, but Xaoc did not turn away from the mirror. Blinding light, and then an eye as blue as the crystal seas. The eye looked like it should have been laughing, but the creature that held it seemed not to be amused. The royal angel Arthuriel grasped the great blue eye with resentment, and with the other hand was playing a fast, disjointed tune on some celestial harp. His ears were curved, his eye-sockets sunken, and his cold silver light flowed down his ragged floor-length hair into the very clouds. The angel peeked into the mirror with dread at himself, growing old, growing …. bitter. He mustered the luminance from his stomach and transformed his face into a younger creature of impeccable beauty, and sang a few notes that would have seemed perfect, if they weren't so sad.

The angel turned away from his mirror, and his face became more jaded and fearsome than before. His light was powerful, not warm; sophisticated, not graceful. He would not look into the eye.

Xaoc handed the mirror away in stunned silence for a moment, and Helena folded it neatly back into the nether of her robe.

Then the demon started to laugh, "Is it truly..." he started soft, and the laugh became bolder and wilder, like all the creatures of the wild wood were laughing along with the demon, as if they had all just learned the terrible and wonderful secret. "... That there is nothing left... of the Radiant Master... the anchor of the mighty angels... but one eye!"

A defeated, shriveled Devil in hell, and only the hopeless shred of a God left in the heavens.

"It seems, my dear lady," Xaoc said, purring with excitement, "That it is time for a new order in the universe."


End file.
